Country boy, city girl

Relationship complaints against fenghuangnan boil down to their unwillingness to spend money. Photo: Li Hao/GT

Romantic misunderstandings emblematic of the gaping divide between rural and urban China

A lonely hearts advertisement that went viral online earlier this month has sparked heated discussion on the Internet about the pronounced differences between China's rural and urban areas when it comes to marriage expectations and matters of the heart.

The advertisement, posted by a 30-year-old man who grew up in a poor rural village in Zhejiang Province but who now earns a good salary working for a State-owned company in a third-tier city, listed a set of requirements that has attracted the scorn of a large number of microbloggers. Any potential marriage partners, he wrote, should be willing to write his parents' names into the property deeds of any existing houses they own, or be willing to have his parents' names included in any property they buy together. Both his parents and siblings would live in the same house as them.

The woman should be from the city, an only child, and the sole inheritor of her parents' wealth. In addition, her parents should have their own apartment, their own health insurance and pensions, so as to impose no financial burdens on the young couple.

Despite explaining that his requirements were motivated by wanting to repay his parents for the hardships they had endured to put him through university, most of the comments in response to the advertisement have derided the man for being selfish, hypocritical, and money-grubbing.

Phoenix men, peacock women

Men like the one who posted the lonely hearts ad are known in China as fenghuangnan, or "phoenix men." The term refers to men who have grown up in rural destitution, but have managed to move up in the world and find success in their careers in cities - like a "phoenix that has risen from the ashes."

The opposite of a fenghuangnan is a kongquenü, or "peacock women" - so-called because they have grown up in the city in relative material affluence, and are as "proud as peacocks."

Fenghuangnan and kongquenü are popularly perceived to be incompatible. An online survey conducted by Chinese news portal NetEase of 35,500 single women showed that fenghuangnan were seen as less desirable than any other type of man.

Lu Jiehua, a sociology professor from Peking University, said that the attitudes of city dwellers toward fenghuangnan was a reflection of significant social, cultural and economic gaps that still exist between rural and urban China.

"Fenghuangnan are like immigrants [to the city]," said Lu. "They face culture shock and frequently find that their views about the world differ from those who have grown up in the city."

These differences, said Lu, have been made more visible by China's massive urbanization, and especially come to the surface in intimate relationships, both personal and professional.

Case study of a failed relationship

Xu Ning (pseudonym), a 23-year-old graduate student who grew up in Changsha in Hunan Province, has experienced the difficulties of a peacock-phoenix relationship firsthand. Xu grew up in relative comfort, with both her parents bringing in decent incomes as civil servants, while her ex-boyfriend was from a small village in Shandong Province, where his parents continue to struggle economically as farmers.

"At the beginning, I was attracted by his good-looks, his charm and the fact that he had a good job at a hospital," said Xu, who met her ex-boyfriend after moving to Beijing. As their relationship developed however, Xu started to be bothered by what she felt was stinginess on his part.

"We were together for one year, and he never bought me a single present, even when there were special occasions," said Xu. "I'm a romantic person. I think presents are important, and he definitely could have afforded an occasional gift on his salary."

Not only that, said Xu, but her ex-boyfriend would always complain that she was spending too much money - even when it was her own money that she was spending. Whenever she would get her hair dyed or buy new clothes, he would nag her for days, Xu said.

"He also made it clear that I needed to give birth to a boy to carry on his family line," said Xu. "If our firstborn was a girl, I needed to continue having children until I had a boy."

Her list of grievances about things they didn't see eye-to-eye on continues.